Hexx wrote:Glad you liked Lady Maria - she's one of the best "pure" bosses that's not a huge monster.

Twas good. Think I prefered man on top of snowy castle though. He was a bit of a dick though if I remember properly.

Hexx wrote:I don't know why you've having such trouble with vials by this point - equip runs and/or buy some?

Wish I knew. I've bought plenty over the course of the game. Most of my fights with the Orphaned Cosplayer are long. Nothing like your first vid. In one I actually reached 0 vials which rarely happens. When you use 10+ a go you get through them quickly. I really don't get how this wasnt more of an issue for other people.

Hexx wrote:And sooooo good if you know the lore.

Well its obvious there is an alien god in the sea. That somehow its polluting/mutating/being used by the locals. So the Cosplayer is probably a new born of it. At first I thought it was Bob. Poor angry Cosplayer is Orphaned so the alien god has probably died. Possibly because the locals have been harvesting it. This is what turns them into barnacle baddies. Then this gets mixed in with the "normal" blood stuff and all the gooseberry fools happen.

Maybe.

I hate you so much. So much.

The ByrgenwerthScholar's came to the village and experimented on the Residents (and maybe the nearby Great One? It's debatable what killed the creature on the beach).

You can can hear the Residents/moaning cursing the Scholars - and you go through their experimentation earlier (the DLC is a reverse of events)

They called to Kos to curse the Scholar's (and their hunter allies) - helping start the blood curse. And why hunters get drawn into this Nightmare.

Maria killed herself in shame - but her ghost protect the secret/shame of the huners by blocking entry to the village in the nightmare

I hated the vials at first. Up to first boss where it's hard to farm, you can't really level up - and you just seem to repeat fail boss fight, then spend ages farming vials to try again, without any progress really irked me

Hexx wrote:Glad you liked Lady Maria - she's one of the best "pure" bosses that's not a huge monster.

Twas good. Think I prefered man on top of snowy castle though. He was a bit of a dick though if I remember properly.

Hexx wrote:I don't know why you've having such trouble with vials by this point - equip runs and/or buy some?

Wish I knew. I've bought plenty over the course of the game. Most of my fights with the Orphaned Cosplayer are long. Nothing like your first vid. In one I actually reached 0 vials which rarely happens. When you use 10+ a go you get through them quickly. I really don't get how this wasnt more of an issue for other people.

Hexx wrote:And sooooo good if you know the lore.

Well its obvious there is an alien god in the sea. That somehow its polluting/mutating/being used by the locals. So the Cosplayer is probably a new born of it. At first I thought it was Bob. Poor angry Cosplayer is Orphaned so the alien god has probably died. Possibly because the locals have been harvesting it. This is what turns them into barnacle baddies. Then this gets mixed in with the "normal" blood stuff and all the gooseberry fools happen.

Maybe.

I hate you so much. So much.

The ByrgenwerthScholar's came to the village and experimented on the Residents (and maybe the nearby Great One? It's debatable what killed the creature on the beach).

You can can hear the Residents/moaning cursing the Scholars - and you go through their experimentation earlier (the DLC is a reverse of events)

They called to Kos to curse the Scholar's (and their hunter allies) - helping start the blood curse. And why hunters get drawn into this Nightmare.

Maria killed herself in shame - but her ghost protect the secret/shame of the huners by blocking entry to the village in the nightmare

I hated the vials at first. Up to first boss where it's hard to farm, you can't really level up - and you just seem to repeat fail boss fight, then spend ages farming vials to try again, without any progress really irked me

I knew the Burgerworth gang were involved. Just wasnt sure if they studied what fish people or helped create them. I thought maybe that by studying them they introduced a new form of power up into the blood stuff that was already happening with my waifu and this caused the curse or whatever it is.

Hexx wrote:I hate you so much. So much.

Hexx wrote:I hated the vials at first.

See, I was the other way. I really liked them. Finding them scattered about made me feel less dependent on the lanterns and as such more likely to explore. I knew if I went in a direction I might find some more and it would help fuel my travels. However I didn't die until I found the 2 wolves on the bridge. Then I might not have died again until I found Gazza and the includes dealing with the Cleric Beast. So my experience of it is only from one angle. It wasn't until Gazza when I started to grind away at them and needed to farm. At some point the game started to drop far less of them and then once I got to some bosses that need multiple attempts they just vanish. This was even worse with Cunty McBackflaps because I had to add antidote to my farming.

Also I find the healing by hitting back thing against bosses far less effective then normal enemies. The amount you get back vs. the damage they do makes it almost pointless.

I am really intrigued as to what your final assessment of the game will be, Matt. It seems that there are many aspects which have grated... but you *must* be quite enjoying it to have stuck with it. I look forward to hearing your verdict!

I might dissect it later. Depends if I can be bothered. But the short version is it could have been a great fight but it wasn't.

Had a brief look about the rest of the village. Killed some singing frenzy banana splits. Killed another projection of the bloke in the cell. Dunno what I'm doing now. There was a strange black ghost thing on the beach.

So then.... Orphaned Cosplayer. Most of what I said before was true. But with more fights the crappy bits just became more obvious.

The Watching Artist wrote:Orphaned Cosplayer. Well.............. strawberry float. Made it to the second phase. Then the lightening bollocks which is complete BS and along with the red area attacks (which are bigger then the red area) have strawberry floated over what could have been a great boss fight. We had been exchanging blows, with me parrying and backstabbing. It was good. But then they chucked the cheap moves at me.

Given that I hadn't played for a few days I was pleasantly surprised with how well my first go went. It ended in a shitty cheap way though. My next attempt was a mess is lots of ways. I attacked right next to him, locked on, yet missed. Then I got caught out by the above stupid red area then the final blow that kills me clearly wasn't near me. Hexx was telling the truth about his wide attacks. Not only are they massive animations, which regularly infuriated me as dodging an attack only to get hit by the same attack because its so massive is stupid, but also because quite often I'd get strawberry floated over by hit boxes. Even the projectiles get in on the this. I'd dodge but I'd still get sent flying.This attempt was doomed to failure anyway as the Orphaned Cosplayer decided to spam the strawberry float out of the ALL THE PROJECTILES attack in his second form. My salt levels went through the roof. Not helped when he kills me but blatantly misses me. Just slow this down. The red zone and then the projectile do there thing to me again. and again. Its absurd. Slow this bit down to see my getting strawberry floated over by two hits from the same move. Seriously? At least viewing it back now means I can see how I got strawberry floated. Anyway. I could probably link to a number of bits where things like all this kept happening. I've already done enough.

I found the second form really pushed the lock on and camera to its limits. Its not as bad as other fights but given how relentless the fight it is I always felt like I struggling with it. At times the sheer amount of movement from the boss would mean I would go to dodge only for the camera to spin and I'd end up going in a different direction. Pedz finally decided to say hi, no doubt bored of my failure to dispatch the boss. He declared the fight, "shitty a lot." But I then had my best attempt. But this ended in the most frustrating cheap strawberry floating way possible. Anyone that ever says its always fair blah blah is a twat. And I'll fight you over it. My next attempt though. Well. I did it. Compared to my previous go it was a mess I think and I sort of feel I just lucked out and wasn't punished so hard by the shitty lightning and the like. As such it just wasn't all that satisfying. I called the Orphaned Cosplayer what he deserved.

So the reason I wanted to write so much about that fight was that at its core its a really good fight. It could have been great. But the desire to make so hard in cheap ways strawberry floats it over. I love the setting, the design, the story around it (well what I know/understand of it anyways). The screams of this new born, raging against the death of its mother. It could have been so sooooooo good. But it wasn't.

Anyway. I'm not sure what I've got left to do now. I might come back to the chalice dungeons but I'm far too burnt out by this to do it now. So can some explain how the end game figures into this? If I beat the end can I still do them? Also is there anything else to do?

No. I know the name but I don't think I've faced a boss called that yet.

Hexx wrote:Otherwise I think that's the end...I forget did you do anything after Mergo's Wet Nurse?

Think all I did after that was the Mother Brain frenzy stuff. Its still just sitting there in the dark. I can think of a couple of doors I've not been through. One which leads to a balcony in the Research Hall. Its on the bottom floor with the puddle lost eye person. And the door here https://youtu.be/6d3mIU75ldU?t=4334

Found Laurence, The First Vicar.Killed Laurence, The First Vicar.Turned into a beast thing with the rune. Got Pedz to help me find the Kin version of this.Eventually found this.Turned into a blue thing.Killed Mother Brain.Killed the black ghost of the Orphaned Cosplayer on the coast. Killed the dick hunter that keeps trying to kill me with projections of himself.Did nothing.

The Laurence fight was crap. It was the Cleric Beast but made even worse by the fire and the smaller room and the shitty camera. The camera was poor before but here it seemed even worse. Took me way too long as I'm struggling to get into this again now. Final phase was kinda cool but would have been better if I'd broken the legs off or something. Dunno why he was volcanic. Finding the Kin version of the rune was strawberry floating tedious. Had to reset the area about 6 times. Did like the way the balcony lead to the other lumengarden (or at least looked like it) and that was from before/the future. Before they found My Love, Daughter of Comos? Not really sure what turning into beast/blue thing actually does. Couldn't work out what I was suppose to do with Mother Brain but kill it. Hexx made it sound like there was more to it but I'm too fed up now. Same thing with ghost and dick hunter. Did nothing.

Think I'm just going to finish it tomorrow. Unless there is something I really should do.